As a small business owner, you will be told left, right & centre that collaboration is the key to building a successful business.

Sometimes it can be hard to work out who you should put your faith in. Who can you trust & which other business owners have values that are aligned to yours? Allowing yourself to believe in other people is a risk. Sometimes it pays off & sometimes it back-fires, so what can you do to mitigate the risk? 

Why Is Collaboration So Important For The Small Business Owner?

This is a really good question. “collaboration” has become a bit of a corporate buzzword, but that doesn’t mean that it’s an empty cliché. Brilliant partnerships create extraordinary workplaces. 

Most of us have been employed & where there is a monthly pay cheque we don’t necessarily question the value that collaboration brings to an organisation. Mostly, because the culture of larger organisations has collaboration at their core. There is generally a team environment & an intuitive exchange of ideas. The Sales Team talk to clients, the Marketing Team create the sales materials & advertising campaigns, Project Teams deliver to the customer, Accounts Receivable invoice the customer & collect payment, whilst HR, Facilities & IT Teams work tirelessly in the back-ground to keep everyone else operating smoothly & healthily. Every department is connected to the next & they all play a crucial part in making the business efficient & profitable. 

It is so easy to make the assumption that being a small business owner often means we are a team of one. I would disagree completely with this.

Sharing Gets Better Results

It is true when running your own business, the buck stops with you, but no man or woman is an island. It can be lonely being at the top of your game, but it doesn’t have to be. Even for the most basic of business formats there is an element of collaboration, because you don’t do absolutely everything for yourself. 

Do you have a website for your business? I bet if you do then it is a hosted solution either with the likes of Ionos, Wix or Go Daddy or with a specialist hosting agency like Hipposerve. Do you have an email for your business? Is this connected with your hosting package or maybe it is a Gmail or Hotmail account? Either way they provide a web-based portal to access your email correspondence or perhaps you have an Outlook account which directly sends your emails to your desktop, laptop or smartphone? In these examples you have outsourced a portion of your IT function to a partner that you trust to keep you connected to the world & your customers. By default, you have created a team & for the most part in this scenario, you probably haven’t given the collaborative aspect a lot of consideration. Your drivers for a website & an email are because you need them, price & you have probably chosen an established brand such as Microsoft. Why is this? It’s because you may have used their applications before or in the case of a website as the result of a particular supplier who has advertised on TV, making them trustworthy for the fact they have already been in your own front room

Collaboration is when a group of businesses or people come together to contribute their expertise for the benefit of a shared objective, project, or mission. So, in this scenario it’s about having a reliable website & email for your business. 

Rarely, do we as small business owners have all the skills needed to be truly successful. We regularly outsource parts of our business because there are technical aspects that are not our skill set. I for example have an accountant: AJF Taxation. I am not an accountant. My skills lie elsewhere. Creating my annual accounts, filing a tax return, processing a payroll & getting the tax advise I need is not something where I am an expert, but they are. Together we use a third-party solution for my bookkeeping in the form of Xero. I am not too bad a bookkeeper, because I keep on top of it, have a fair knowledge of what is required in record keeping & I can run management information reports from Xero, so I can make sure my numbers are where I want them to be. If I have a question I can pick the phone up to the team at AJF Taxation or drop them an email. It is a partnership that works. Collaborating here takes away the worry about something where I am never going to be proficient. I did not set-up my business to be an accountant. So, by collaborating, it means I can focus on the things I am good at. AJF Taxation can deliver what I need in their field of expertise, & do it in a much timelier manner than I can alone. They save me time, stress & money in the long run. 

Buddha Connect is a limited company, which means filing a tax return & preparing company accounts is more involved than a simple self-assessment for HMRC. I have a relationship with AJF Taxation partly because there is a necessity to comply with the law, but also because I trust them. They are the best people to make myself & Buddha Connect compliant. AJF Taxation like nearly all accountants are qualified professionals, so this, by definition, means that they should know what they are doing on my behalf. Choosing to collaborate with AJF Taxation over another accountant is based on more than competence. What are these things? 

Know, Like & Trust

Let’s take a broader outlook. How do you choose a partner or person to work with? 

There are some key factors & drivers. As small business owners, we know that every sector is crowded with other business owners, both big & small, all vying for a portion of the business that is available. It can be hard to identify the best person for you to work with. 

Know:

So, number one on the list of requirements is that you have to ‘know’ who you might want to partner with. There are so many options in front of you, do you play ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ & hope for the best? No! There is a better way. Which is through the power of networking & the power of introductions. Go & meet people, have conversations & discover more about the products & services available to you. I met AJF Taxation whilst networking, so this is how I got to know them. 

Use your networking time to talk about who you are & to fine tune your narrative around what you do, why you do it & how you have helped people. Not all the people you meet will be relevant immediately, but you never know where you will be in a few months or a couple of years. Plus, as you expand your network of connections, someone you met today, that’s not quite right for you might be a great introduction for someone you meet tomorrow.  

Like:

Next, comes ‘like’. If you don’t like another business owner, then you will not want to work with them or for that matter make introductions. What factors determine if you are likeable? It is true to say that you cannot please all of the people all of the time. So, firstly you need to be true to yourself, so that you attract similar people with common values. I have another blog which explores this subject in more detail. I also believe that as part of the ‘like factor’ you need to be consistent, have a clear set of values that other business owners can align with, have transparent pricing that is easy to understand & be realistic in your expectations. Again, with AJF Taxation, we built our relationship over time. I saw them as I was networking, we chatted regularly, we had a productive 121 & our spheres of influence gradually became entwinned.

Be careful in your approach. It is so easy to ask other business owners for freebies or to barter products or services, but unless it is exactly like for like then there is a mismatch & one party will be out of pocket. If, you ask, you are potentially undermining your credibility, which in turn impacts negatively on your ‘like’ score. Most business owners want be paid a fair price for their work. If you know your value & that of your product or service then the whole concept of giveaways & bartering becomes mute. Generally, where I am being offered a product or service in lieu I will say something along the lines of “when my mortgage company accepts payment of my mortgage in the goods you are offering, then we have a deal”. 

Trust:

To round off here, comes ‘trust’. Knowing another small business owner & liking them are mere stepping stones on the path the trust. So, how does one take that leap of faith? Trust in another business or business owner doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. My relationship with AJF taxation blossomed overtime & when it was right for me to change my accounting team, they were the first & on this occasion, the only people I spoke with. I had done my own due diligence by getting to know them, to realise our values are similar & that we can communicate openly. I had mitigated as much risk as I could, but there is still that question about can they deliver on everything I need. 

How can you measure whether you trust someone else & also whether other people trust you? Top of the list should be consistency & continuity in the way you present yourself & your business. If you are networking become known as the face of your sector at a particular networking event, a little networking done really well will deliver better results than trying to be everywhere. Spend time to find out about other business owners with the power of 121 meetings, use your active listening skills to re-iterate other people’s key messages & help them to meet other people in your network who you trust. If you promise to do something like an introduction make sure you do this when you say you are going to, & follow-up to find out what happened. A bad introduction can reflect badly on you & your trust value. If you find out what is going on you can recover the situation, by making an alternative introduction. Likewise, if you are introduced by a work colleague, it is important that you pick-up the conversation & follow it through, you don’t want to be seen to let someone else down

A Bit At A Time:

Should you want to try someone’s product or service you don’t have to put all your eggs in one basket at the beginning. Give them a piece of the work you want completed. See how they do, then you will have first-hand experience. If they do a good job then they will go up in your estimation. The trust factor will be enhanced & you can give them more to do on your behalf. If they don’t deliver so well, you can stop using them. You haven’t lost a great deal & you can move on to find the right person to work with. There is no harm in asking for genuine testimonials for a job well done. Use these in your marketing, website & on social media. If others can see how well you have worked or delivered elsewhere it gives them confidence in your abilities.

Not all collaborations are about exchanging products & services for payment. Sometimes we work together in partnerships, where both sides bring a separate but inter-connected skill set to the table or offer a complimentary product or service. This kind of relationship requires a different level of trust, where your values, mission & vision are aligned with one another. Often you will have the same potential clients & combining forces allows you to provide a more rounded & robust solution for your clients. 

Take That Leap Of Faith

In this blog I have covered a lot of ground, but central to the concepts raised is being part of a team. As I have already alluded to, for many small business owners, whether at the beginning of their journey or with a more established reputation, running your own business can be isolating. Therefore, assembling a ‘dream team’ of people just like you is an invaluable way to keep you on the road to success. For me Business Buzz has proven to be that invaluable tool. My business & personal life are richer for the connections I have made & it is a place where I know my colleagues have my back & are on my side. Business Buzz has created a brilliant community & I am so thankful to be a part of it. Why not take that leap of faith & find-out if Business Buzz is the place for you? 

Start the conversation to day & reach out by emailing me via warwickshire@business-buzz.org. I will pick the phone up, find out more about who you are & explain more about the benefits of becoming part of the Buzz Family.       

1. https://goremotely.net/blog/workplace-collaboration/